


And His Eyes Are Amber

by why_cello_there



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (again not explicit but THEY AUTISTIC!), (not explicit but it's important to me), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Hope's Peak Academy (Dangan Ronpa), Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Autistic Akamatsu Kaede, Autistic K1-B0, Autistic Saihara Shuichi, Character Study, Coming of Age, Growing Up, Hinata Hajime & Kamukura Izuru Share a Body Simultaneously, Human K1-B0 (Dangan Ronpa), Multi, Nonbinary K1-B0 (Dangan Ronpa), Nonbinary Kamukura Izuru, Oma Kokichi Is a Little Shit, Saihara Shuichi-centric, Trans Male Character, Trans Saihara Shuichi, Ultimate Roboticist Kiibo, also not explicit but it's very important to me that you know that, hajime and izuru get a passing mention at most but i want to be tagging accurately, tags will be added as the story progresses, trans author
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2019-12-30 07:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 11,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18310973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/why_cello_there/pseuds/why_cello_there
Summary: Rantaro was always there. And then he wasn't.She knew herself. And then she(?) didn't.Life was simple. And then it wasn't.Was it ever?A story about Shuichi growing up, and the events that made him himself. Content warnings in the Author's Notes for each chapter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [babybluebutterfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybluebutterfly/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> Narration consistently refers to Shuichi as female before he realises his gender.

Mariko Saihara is five years old. Her hair is short, messy, and dark, and her eyes are amber. 

Those eyes follow her best friend as he scurries up a tree, and she thinks he looks a bit like a squirrel as he climbs up, up, up, and settles on a branch. Even from the base of the tree, she takes note of scraped palms and knees, and the bright grin on her friend’s face, despite how much his hands and knees must _hurt_ , what with the bark of the tree being as rough as it is. She apprehensively reaches out to touch the tree trunk, balking at the texture and immediately recoiling. 

“C’mon, Mahara!” Mariko looks back up to see her friend beckoning to her. “It’s not that high, I promise!”

She rolls her eyes at that, pulling her cap down to hide the gesture, before she looks back up. “You’re insane, Rantaro,” she calls. 

“Maybe!” Rantaro agrees, swinging his legs leisurely as he looks down at his friend. He’s also five (twenty six days younger than Mariko, to be exact); his hair is short, fluffy, and light, and his eyes are green. 

“You seriously expect me to climb all the way up there?” Mariko asks, trying to sound merely exasperated instead of nervous. 

“Mhmm!” Rantaro gives a short, decisive nod of his head. Then, his playful smile drops for a moment, suddenly becoming serious. “I mean… You don’t have to,” he clarifies, and Mariko _hates_ how easily he picked up on her anxiety. She likes it too, though. Rantaro’s her best friend, and they know each other inside out. 

Mariko feels her nervousness fade, replaced by a strong desire to prove herself, to prove she’s _not **scared** , okay_, and that desire sends her up, up, up, and settling on the branch next to Rantaro. Her hands are screaming, burning, and her scraped knees match Rantaro’s, but it doesn’t bother her as much as she thought it would. 

Rantaro looks slightly confused, slightly impressed, and slightly something else that Mariko can’t quite catch. “You didn’t have to,” he says, frowning slightly. 

“Shush.”

Rantaro just laughs, taking hold of Mariko’s hand. Palm against palm, scrapes against scrapes, sting against sting. Mariko never wants to let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> 1) Mahara — A way of forming nicknames in Japanese, more commonly with younger children, is to combine the given and family names. So Ma(riko Sai)hara = Mahara. I though it would fit well here.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading this! This first chapter is relatively short, but others are longer. Comments are welcome!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> Narration consistently refers to Shuichi as female before he realises his gender.

Mariko Saihara is nine years old. Her eyes are amber, and her hair is short, dark, and messy. At least, the hair still attached to her head is short, dark, and messy. The rest lies in the sink, the remains of a ponytail.

She’s home alone; her uncle gives her a lot of independence, and she uses it responsibly. Her uncle often works on weekends, and Mariko usually uses that time for study, if she’s not doing odd jobs at the agency. 

Mariko stares into the mirror, the results of an impulse decision staring right back at her in the form of puffy eyes, a quivering lower lip, and a mess of uneven, choppy hair framing her pale, terrified face.

“ _Crap,_ ” she whispers (whimpers?), unable to even move aside from her trembling.

The scissors fall from her trembling hands and crash onto the floor, and only then is she jolted out of her trance. She turns on the faucet, hoping the hair doesn’t clog the drain, and she takes a brush through the dark mess on her head to try and make it less scruffy. Small bits of hair fall onto the tiles, like falling snow, or perhaps more like ash from a fire. 

Mariko stares at the ground for a few seconds, before leaving the bathroom and heading to the closet where she remembers the vacuum cleaner being. She brings back into the room and hesitates for a few seconds, gritting her teeth before turning it on. The noise is loud and hurts her ears, but it’s her only option.

She feels like a criminal, almost. As she cleans up the last of the hair and returns the vacuum to its usual spot, it feels like she’s just destroyed evidence of a crime. It makes her feel sick to her stomach, like she’ll be arrested any second now.

Mariko goes to her room and slips her cap onto her head, hiding the mess and hiding her eyes. She then picks up her phone and sends a message to her best friend.

 

**Mahara:** Can I come over? I made a mistake on impulse and I can’t fix it on my own. 

**Amami (1/12):** sure thing. what happened?

**Mahara:** I’ll explain when I get there. I might also need one or more of your sisters.

**Amami (1/12):** okay. i’ll let them know you’re coming.

**Mahara:** Thanks. I’d die for you.

**Amami (1/12):** no you won’t. you aren’t allowed to.

**Amami (1/12):** see you soon mahara! 

**Mahara:** Stop calling me that, dork!

**Amami (1/12):** nah :P

 

It’s not a long walk to the Amami house; she’s made the trip so many times that she could practically sleepwalk the route. Mariko walks to the door, and Rantaro opens it before she can even knock. She laughs softly; they both know _exactly_ how long it takes her to get there.

“Hi,” Rantaro says, ushering Mariko inside. She slips her shoes off and hesitates as she hears the door close, stalling for time. “So, what’s happened?”

Mariko takes a deep breath; inhale, exhale. She pulls her hat off, revealing the disaster that is her impromptu haircut. 

Rantaro stares for a moment, then a small grin plays at his lips. Mariko knows this face, the _I’m-desperately-trying-not-to-laugh-because-I-don’t-want-to-be-mean-but-this-is-funny_ face. 

So she smiles back, awkward and sheepish. _Inhale._

A moment of silence.

They then burst into laughter, the tension immediately broken, a satisfying _exhale_. 

“You don’t look too bad,” Rantaro says, and Mariko immediately _snorts_ derisively. “Hey, I mean it! Long hair never suited you,” he insists.

“Sure. Just help me fix this, okay?” Mariko says, and Rantaro laughs in response as he leads her to one of the bathrooms. 

“Stay there for a second, okay? I just gotta find some scissors,” Rantaro says, disappearing back into the hall.

While she waits, Mariko runs her hands through her hair, neatening it up just a little. Messy and disastrous as it is, she likes it much better than the ponytail. She decides then and there to keep it short.

When Rantaro returns, he returns with scissors, a comb, hair clips, and two of his sisters—Amako and Yukana—trailing behind him. The three of them immediately start fussing over Mariko, and they make quick work of tidying her hair up into something presentable. It’s not perfect—they’re only kids, after all—parts still fall in front of her eyes, and there’s a lock of hair that keeps sticking up, no matter what they do.

 

_(“Maybe we should just cut it off?” Yukana picks the scissors up again. Mariko quickly shakes her head._

_“I am_ **_done_ ** _with the scissors,” she insists._

_“Anyway, I think it suits you,” Rantaro chimes in, smiling playfully._

_Amako nods in agreement, flicking the lock and immediately getting her hand swatted away by her siblings. “Hey! I wasn’t being mean!” she huffs.)_

 

By the time they’re finished, Mariko is smiling so hard her cheeks hurt, and she thinks she looks a lot more like herself now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> Narration refers to Shuichi as female before he realises his gender.  
> Piercings, brief mention of infection.

Mariko Saihara is ten years and twenty six days old. Her hair is short, dark, and neat, and her eyes are amber. Her hand is currently being squeezed so hard that she’s slightly worried it’ll drop off, but she won’t let go.

Rantaro Amami is exactly ten years old, and has a white-knuckled grip on his best friend’s hand as he sits in the chair, staring into the mirror like he’s made of stone.

“Are you sure you—”

“YesI’msure,” Rantaro immediately spits out, not looking at Mariko. The hand that isn’t crushing hers is instead crushing the arm of the seat. “I’ve already paid. And I’ve wanted this for _ages._ ” 

Rantaro isn’t exaggerating. She’s slept over at his house plenty of times (though those are tapering off in frequency, she’s realised); over the years, she’s overheard “The Piercing Discussion” _plenty_ of times. Though years had gone by, the argument stayed roughly the same:

  
_“Please?”_

_“When you’re ten.”_

 

“I really don’t think they meant that you were allowed to go out by yourself and get it done the minute you turned ten!” Mariko says, exasperated.

“I’m not by myself. You’re with me, aren’t you?” Rantaro says, turning to look Mariko in the eyes.

Mariko flushes, looking at their clasped hands instead. “I guess,” she says. She _hates_ Rantaro Amami, _hates_ that he could convince her to accompany him in this stupid endeavour. She hates him more when he starts to laugh.

“You’re so stupid,” Mariko murmurs. “Your parents are gonna kill you.”

“No they won’t,” Rantaro insists. “You worry too much, Mahara.”

“Don’t call me that,” Mariko says, trying to hold back her smile. 

“You know you love me!” Rantaro retorts, laughing. His grip on her hand loosens, and he’s no longer clawing at the chair.

“Shut _up!”_ Mariko finds herself laughing, despite herself.

Their laughter quickly dies down once the worker arrives, brandishing a piercing gun. Mariko winces as Rantaro grips her hand again. On the first piercing, he nearly crushes her hand. On the second, Mariko hears him swear for the first time, and she lightly swats his shoulder for it.

“Your parents will _kill_ us,” she says as they leave the shop.

  
(Rantaro’s parents don’t kill anyone, but they do give Rantaro a good lecture once he and Mariko get back to his home. Rantaro looks mortified, especially once his siblings form a small crowd to watch the speech. When it’s over, he apologises profusely to Mariko. Mariko does her best not to laugh.

A week later, her phone buzzes.

 

**Amami (1/12):** so the piercings got infected

**Mahara:** You’re a genius. 

**Amami (1/12):** you’re mean

)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rantaro Amami got his ears pierced at Claire's (he's got a total of three brain cells at any given time and I love him)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> Narration consistently refers to Shuichi as female before he realises his gender.

Mariko Saihara is ten years old. Her hair is short, dark, and neat, and her eyes are amber, with dark circles of exhaustion beneath them. After months of research, skipping lunch breaks to look around, and begging her uncle to drive her to various locations, she’d _finally_ managed to catch Kimi Yamanaka’s miniature pet alligator. She hadn’t asked for Mariko’s help exactly; Mariko had overheard her talking about it, and had offered to help. She partly regrets it, though, having lost _far_ too much sleep and gotten _far_ too behind on homework while trying to find the thing. She’d also barely talked to anyone, save for asking Yamanaka for more information to try and make it an easier job.

She looks into the animal carrier at the reptile (what’s its name? Eta? Geda? Something like that), which seems a little bit sheepish, and a little bit embarrassed at having been caught. “You have caused me _so_ much trouble,” she mutters, before heading into the classroom and clearing her throat to get Yamanaka’s attention.

“Yamanaka-san—?”  
“ _Geta!”_

Yamanaka almost squeals as she gets up from her seat, running over to the doorway where Mariko stands. Mariko moves to hand her the carrier; one of her friends takes it instead, with Yamanaka crushing Mariko in a hug.

“H-huh—?!”  
“Thankyouthankyou _thank you!!!_ ” Yamanaka steps back; her hair is long, dark, and falls in waves down her back, and her eyes are lilac. They sparkle as she speaks to Mariko. “How much do you want?”  
“Wait, you don’t need to pay me!”

Yamanaka’s face falls. “But I don’t want to be unfair. I wanna do something for you too, okay?”

Mariko can’t bring herself to argue any further. Her face flushes, and she gives a small nod. “If you insist…”

 

Seven days later is Valentine’s Day. Mariko finds a heart-shaped box of chocolates on her desk when she walks into class. She feels her face heat up as she picks up the box, and she examines it closely. There’s no price tag on it, but it can’t have been cheap. She opens it carefully, finding a small note taped to the inside of the lid. 

_“Saihara-chan,_

_Thank you so, so much! I really hope you like this in return for your help._

_Meet me in the library after school?_

♡

_Sincerely,_

_Yamanaka Kimi”_

 

After school, Mariko shares the chocolates with Yamanaka. It doesn’t feel right to keep them to herself, and she doesn’t want to have to explain them to her uncle. Yamanaka relents and shares them, though not before giving Mariko a small, silver pin shaped like a star, and not before additionally giving her a kiss on the cheek. Mariko flushes, but smiles when she sees that Yamanaka is smiling, too. Mariko doesn’t know why she ever regretted taking on the case. It was all worth it for Yamanaka to be happy, for Yamanaka to be happy with _her._

She also doesn’t know why her heart is pounding as much as it is.

Her heartbeat doubles when Yamanaka kisses her cheek again. They’ve finished the chocolate, and Yamanaka has a train to catch to get home. She stands up, heading to the door with a sweet smile.

“See you tomorrow, Mariko-chan!”

Mariko feels her face go red, and she nods. “Y-yeah. See you tomorrow, Yamanaka-san,” she says. The other girl pauses, then giggles softly.

“You can call me Kimi!” she says sweetly, before disappearing out the door.

Mariko pins Kimi’s star onto her cap before she begins her walk home.

 

**Amami (1/12):** so how was your valentine’s day mahara?

 

Mariko hesitates. She can still feel Kimi’s kiss on her cheek.

 

**Mahara:** It was okay. I finally caught Yamanaka-san’s alligator. 

**Amami (1/12):** that’s good. i was starting to worry you’d never speak to anyone again

**Mahara:** I wouldn’t have! I’m not that bad. 

**Amami (1/12):** you sure? one of these days i’ll have to force you to stop overworking yourself

**Mahara:** Doubt it. I can handle myself. 

**Mahara:** Also, stop calling me Mahara!

**Amami (1/12):** why not?

**Mahara:** Because

**Mahara:** I don’t know, okay? We aren’t little kids anymore. It’s a dumb nickname. 

**Amami (1/12):** mahara. we’re TEN. 

**Mahara:** Shush. 

 

She ends up not telling Rantaro about Kimi. It doesn’t feel right, somehow. Her heart squirms uncomfortably in her chest at keeping something from him, but she doesn’t want to know how it’d feel to tell him the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had an absolute blast writing this chapter, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.  
> This was mainly my interpretation of this section of Shuichi's backstory (copy+pasted from the wiki page bc I can't remember if/where it comes up in the game and I don't wanna summarise it myself bc I'm lazy):
> 
> "Shuichi's first detective case was unofficial but a tough one, as his classmate asked him to find her miniature pet alligator, and he had to do a lot of research, prepare tools and eventually climb around mountains and swim up rivers. As thanks for finding her pet, Shuichi's classmate later gave him chocolate for Valentine's Day, though he assumed it was done just as friends. Shuichi was mostly happy to be useful and memorized her words "thank you"." ( https://danganronpa.fandom.com/wiki/Shuichi_Saihara )
> 
> I took this a little bit further and made the gift a little more than chocolate, as you can tell. Honestly this chapter kind of wrote itself, and while I intended to stick to canon, it was just a little more interesting to take it a little bit further. So there's a little closer a relationship between Shuichi and Kimi, but it felt right to write what I did. Again, I hope you enjoyed reading, and comments are always welcome!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> Narration consistently refers to Shuichi as female before he realises his gender.

Mariko Saihara is ten years old. Her hair is short, dark, and neat, and her eyes are amber and wet. 

The desk next to hers is empty, and has been for the past two weeks. 

Rantaro Amami is ten years old. His hair is short, fluffy, and light, and his eyes are green. He is gone. 

He disappeared without a word to her. Mariko has no idea what happened, her detective work leaving her with a hundred dead ends. It’s like he just vanished off the face of the earth one day.

He can’t be dead. She would have seen it in the papers if he was, or would have found out some way. 

She reasons that he’s probably on a trip somewhere. Rantaro’s known for travelling the world whenever he gets the opportunity. 

Still, it stings that he never told her he was leaving. 

 

Mariko Saihara is eleven years old exactly. She spends her birthday with Kimi at her house. They mostly just talk and play with Geta, and Kimi gives Mariko a kiss on the forehead and a necklace with a turtle pendant on it, and offers to walk her home. Mariko declines, and takes her own route home. 

She passes by the Amami house on her way, and hesitates, walking to the door. She wants to knock, wants so desperately to see if Rantaro’s just been sick, and that’s why he hasn’t been to school or contacted her for the past six months. 

She steps back, blinking back tears and quickly making her way back home. Every day, she passes by, tries to work up the courage, and then retreats. 

She knows he’ll be gone. 

 

Mariko Saihara is eleven years and twenty six days old. Rantaro’s eleven now. She wonders where he is, what he’s doing. Wonders whether he’s thinking of her. 

She stays in her room that day; her uncle allows her a day off from school, calling in to say she’s sick. Mariko feels sick enough lying, feels sicker without her best friend. 

It’s been seven months without the boy who’s been a constant in her life, moreso than anyone else. She’s beginning to think she’ll never see him again. 

Curled up in her blankets, she wipes tears from her eyes. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_ girl. It’s too late to tell him anything, now. 

She’s always thought she’ll marry him, someday. Even if it was a childish fantasy (and she knew it was), she’s always at least liked him, and never considered that he might not be by her side forever. 

Mariko buries her face in her pillows and sobs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> Narration consistently refers to Shuichi as female before he realises his gender.  
> References to death.

Mariko Saihara is twelve years old. A new school year, the desk next to hers is still empty. 

Surely, if he was dead, they would have found his body by now, she thinks. Or at least removed him from the school registry. 

Every morning, her teacher still calls Rantaro’s name at the beginning of the day. Her classmates answer accordingly now. 

“Probably on the moon.”

“He might come in tomorrow, miss!”

“He’s just turned invisible, we should probably mark him present.”

“He’s not here,” Mariko murmurs, but nobody pays attention. Every comment stings. Wherever Rantaro is, he isn’t here. 

Mariko keeps her head down, buried in her notebook. She tries to keep her mind off her friend and on the numbers on the board. 

 

She’s been helping her uncle at the agency more often over the past few months. She spends her birthday working on another infidelity case. It’s much easier than finding Kimi Yamanaka’s alligator; her heart aches when she thinks of the other girl. They’d been growing apart as Mariko lost herself in work, and Kimi moved schools halfway through the year. Mariko toys with the turtle pendant and tries not to think of Kimi as she dives into social media profiles and tries to mark down as much detail as she can. 

 

October 3rd comes and goes. Mariko doesn’t cry. It’s easier not to think about it. She doesn’t pass by the Amami house anymore, taking a detour to and from school to avoid it. That evening, she tries to distract herself by talking to her uncle. He’s been asked to help on a new case, and it’s not infidelity this time. From what she knows so far, Mariko is fairly sure it’s a murder. 

The discussion keeps her thoughts occupied and away from her friend. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this one was super short, but I hope it's still enjoyable! Thank you for reading, and again, comments are always welcome!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> Narration refers to Shuichi as female before he realises his gender, as well as during the early stages of his gender exploration.  
> Anxiety-induced vomiting/nausea  
> Anxiety-induced insomnia  
> Courtrooms  
> Mention of suicide, abuse, and manipulation

Mariko Saihara is fourteen years old. Her hair is short, dark, and neat, and her eyes are amber, with dark circles underneath them that seem to be a permanent feature now. She is in the newspaper.

She? 

_THE BOY DETECTIVE,_ screams the headline. “Saihara-shi” is her name, and “he” solved the murder before the police force, or even “his” uncle did. 

Mariko laughs the first time she reads the article. She doesn’t laugh the second time. Or the third. Or the fourth. She reads it again and again.

_Boy, he, him, his_

It’s not as unnatural to read as she thought it would be. Her uncle finds her collapsed on top of the newspaper the next morning, passed out over her image on the front page.

 

_Mariko_ Saihara is fourteen years old. _Her_ hair is short, dark, and neat, and _her_ eyes are amber.

The more she thinks about it, the less it fits. Frown.

_[———]_ Saihara is fourteen years old, with short, dark, neat hair, and with amber eyes. 

Not quite. Another look back at the article.  _Should I...?_

_[———]_ Saihara is fourteen years old. _His_ hair is short, dark, and neat, and _his_ eyes are amber.

_His_

_Boy, he, him, his_

_He_ smiles to himself, testing it out on _his_ tongue. “I’m a boy,” _he_ says to _him_ self. _Boku_ rolls off his tongue so much more naturally than _watashi_ , and he feels like himself.

He is Saihara—

Oh. Right. 

That needs to be dealt with.

He tests names out on his tongue. 

Tobei, Toshi, Takahiro— no, the T’s sound too sharp to him, too loud, even when whispered. 

Kentaro, Kiichiro, Kimio— he thinks of _Kimi_ Yamanaka and her pretty features; her soft, high voice; the princess-like grace with which she held herself— his heart aches. No.

R—  _no_

Saturo, Shoji, Shinzo— he likes the S’s, thinks it flows nicely. Not too loud, not too graceful. Just soft in a way that he likes. _Something_ Saihara.

Shizuo, Shohei, Shuichi—

_Shuichi_

He says it to himself. Shuichi Saihara. Saihara Shuichi. Yes, that’s right. That fits.

“My name is Shuichi Saihara. I am fourteen years old. I am a boy. I am a detective.”

His cheeks hurt from his smile, and he holds himself tight. He cries, but his heart is soaring instead of breaking.

 

_“My name is Shuichi Saihara. I am fourteen years old. I am a boy. I am a detective.”_

He tells his uncle a few weeks later over dinner. His uncle only chuckles and walks over to Shuichi, ruffling his hair and eliciting an irritated groan from him.

“Uncle!”

“Sorry, sorry. Looks like the papers finally got something right, eh?” his uncle says, and whatever anxiety Shuichi was feeling about this melts away. 

“Yeah, basically,” he says, smiling sheepishly.

“I’ll die of shock if they get anything else right,” his uncle says, and Shuichi laughs softly.

“So… You’re okay with it?” he asks, laughter dying.

“It doesn’t affect me. I just know I have a nephew instead of a niece now.”

Shuichi gets up and hugs his uncle tightly, and tries not to cry. Boy detective… Yes, that fits.

 

Shuichi is fifteen years old when he sends a man to jail for murder. He should feel happy; he solved the case, didn’t he?  
Well, he did. But he’s not sure if the man is entirely guilty, now.

Shuichi doesn’t say much in the trial, lets adults say his piece on his behalf. But he’s there, and everyone recognises _the Boy Detective_ from the newspapers. The culprit, someone called Shimada, does, too, and spends most of the trial staring Shuichi down from across the courtroom.

The victim, a man named Karamorita, Shuichi learns, was as guilty as the one who killed him. He’d manipulated and abused the Shimada family, and eventually driven at least one of them to suicide. It wasn’t the clear-cut murder Shuichi had thought it was.

And he sent a man to jail for trying to bring justice to his family.

As Shimada is lead out of the courtroom, his eyes burn into Shuichi’s, and he spits a death threat to the boy detective.

Even hours later, when Shuichi’s home, safe, he can’t bring himself to raise his eyes from the ground. He can’t even look at his uncle without seeing angry eyes burning into his head. 

He doesn’t sleep that night. Or the next. It’s a while before he can sleep at all.

 

Shuichi doesn’t go outside for a month. There’s too many people, too many eyes, and there will be cameras following him, and it makes him feel sick. Some days he even vomits at the idea. At least, when he’s eaten enough for there to be anything to throw up. His uncle brings food to his room; Shuichi occasionally eats it.

The month of October comes and goes, and Shuichi’s sure he’s missed something important. 

He doesn’t want to be a detective anymore. He’s just a boy.

 

Shuichi’s cap is pulled down in front of his eyes when he eats dinner. His uncle has been forcing him to eat at least two meals each day, and he supposes it’s working.

Without a word, his uncle slides an envelope across the table to his nephew. He seems reluctant.

“Shuichi,” he says. Shuichi glances up from the takoyaki he’s pushing around his plate.

“Hm?”

“It’s for you.”

Shuichi takes the envelope and carefully opens it. He notes the logo on the front.

_No… This can’t be happening._

The letter is a punch to the stomach, and the air leaves his lungs like it’s been sucked out of them.The fabric pressing down on his chest doesn’t help matters. 

He can’t breathe.

He catches small phrases as he unfolds the letter with shaking hands. “ _the Karamorita case”… “impeccable skill”… “a place in Hope’s Peak”…_

The phrase _Ultimate Detective_ makes him nauseous. _“We hope to see you there”_ sends him running to the bathroom.

It’s still Shimada’s eyes that make him vomit. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> 1) "Saihara-shi" — Shi (氏, し) is used in formal writing, and sometimes in very formal speech, for referring to a person who is unfamiliar to the speaker, typically a person known through publications whom the speaker has never actually met. For example, the shi title is common in the speech of newsreaders. 
> 
> Okay so this chapter is a fair bit longer than the last, but it didn't feel right to split into two since each event follows the other. The "boy detective" thing from V3's localisation was actually a contributing factor to my trans Shuichi hc. The specific focus on gender there kinda gave me the idea of "what if he just. didn't consciously realise he was a boy until the media 'mistook' him for one and he was just like OH? BOY? I'M BOY? YES?", so there's that.  
> Now that I'm posting this I'm sceptical of how much this story element makes sense, but on the other hand Gonta's backstory has him being raised by lizard people, Ryoma is a high schooler on death row, Kirumi was technically the prime minister, and Rantaro has TWELVE SIBLINGS and DOESN'T BITCH ABOUT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM (listen I love Rantaro a lot and I love adorable family dynamics but I have TWO siblings and we tell each other to shut up when we aren't even talking, and canon expects me to infer that there were no near-fatalities caused by having that many siblings? anyway i'm getting off topic) — so at this point I'm really not too worried about how plausible this specific media fuck-up is.  
> I hope you enjoy reading this, and comments are always welcome!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> Accidental deadnaming/misgendering  
> Nail biting  
> Anxiety/panic attack  
> Mention of suffocation

Shuichi Saihara is fifteen years old. His hair is short, dark, and neat, and his eyes are amber. He hides them under his cap, trying desperately to avoid the eyes of the people around him. 

He doesn’t belong here. He solved that case by chance. He sent a grieving man to prison for god knows how long.

He barely listens to the orientation speech, and fidgets in his seat, his nails bitten down to the cuticles and still trying to leave angry red lines in his skin. 

He catches the location of the dorm rooms, and holds onto that until he can just _leave._ The speeches end, the students begin to disperse, but there’s still a room full of _people_ and _eyes_ to cross; Shuichi feels his mouth go dry.

He lifts his cap just enough to see where he’s going; he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself by bumping into someone.

Except he does just that, accidentally catching his arm against someone else’s. He looks up, intending just to apologise and move on, except—

He catches a face he knows, knew, hasn’t known for so many years.

Rantaro Amami would be fifteen years old by now. His hair is still short, fluffy, and light. His eyes are still green.

He’s back from the dead. Shuichi can’t stop staring at him. His eyes haven’t changed. He stops talking to a short kid with an inquisitive gaze and white hair to acknowledge Shuichi’s presence.

“A-amami-kun?” Shuichi asks. His voice trembles. He’s never called Rantaro by his surname. Now he thinks he might cry if he doesn’t.

_“Mahara?”_

Nothing about this feels right. That name is no longer his. Rantaro is alive. 

Shuichi is called an Ultimate Detective for a case he should never have solved.

Rantaro is alive.

Shuichi only solved that case by luck, anyway!

Rantaro is alive.

Rantaro is alive.

Rantaro has the _nerve_ to be _here_ , to act as if he was never gone, to speak as if he didn’t disappear for _three_ ** _fucking_** _years._

He calls him _Mahara_ , and that name is poison. It makes bile collect in his throat, makes his eyes water.

Shuichi is five—

_“I swear we’ll always be friends!”_

Seven—

_“I’ll never turn you away, I promise.”_

Ten—

_“I’ll see you later, Mahara!”  
_

People are looking now. Shuichi can’t see them, but he can always _feel_ eyes on him. They burn into the back of his head.

Rantaro’s eyes burn into his soul.

“Don’t call me that,” he _spits_ , voice shaking as he pushes his way past Rantaro and out of the room. 

 

Shuichi Saihara is fifteen. His hair is short, dark, and messy, and his eyes are amber.

He is angry. He is shaking. He is curled up on the bed in the dorm room assigned to him; _what better way,_ he thinks bitterly, _to make a room your own than by having a breakdown?_

He tugs his binder off before he suffocates and makes things worse, and he hides under the blanket.

He doesn’t cry. He’s sick of crying.

_I’m not going to cry._

He cries. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter fuckin uhhh. hurt. from here on out, I don't have anything planned out or pre-written (I wrote chapters 1-8 in advance before posting any of it), so my updates are going to be a little less frequent. but I promise things are going to get better from here, it's not going to end with this massive rift between Shuichi and Rantaro! I hope you enjoyed reading this, and as always, comments are always appreciated!   
> I'm really grateful for every single person who's reading this story, and really happy that people are enjoying this. So I want to thank you all so much as I finish up the pre-written sections of this and start posting as I write. I'm excited to see where this story goes from here!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:
> 
> None applicable

Shuichi is torn away from his work by a confident knock at his door. He flinches at the sudden sound—he isn’t exactly expecting company. He finishes writing a note on a suspect’s file, stands, and pulls his hat on before walking to the door. 

He has to psych himself up a little bit. _Calm down, Shuichi_ —he likes to say his name to himself, it’s comforting— _it’s just a door._

He opens it to see Akamatsu in the hallway, smiling brightly.

“Hi, Saihara-kun!” she says, and panic sets in once again. Shuichi swallows it down, and gives her as polite a smile as he can muster.

“Hi, Akamatsu-san,” he replies, and there’s a moment of silence between them, neither quite sure what to say. Shuichi hasn’t planned for this, and it’s beginning to look like Akamatsu is in the same boat.

“So,” Shuichi says, his voice a _painful_ attempt at casual, “what do you want?”

He immediately grimaces— _Great job, Shuichi. That_ ** _totally_** _didn’t sound rude and antisocial, and she_ ** _definitely_** _isn’t gonna think you hate her or anything._

He tries his best to amend the situation. “I-I’m sorry, I—”

“I was wondering if you wanted to hang out?” Akamatsu doesn’t seem to notice Shuichi’s mild panic. Or, if she does, she doesn’t seem to care. “In the music room,” she adds.

“H-huh?” Shuichi asks, certain that he’s misheard. “Music room?”

“Mhm!” Akamatsu nods, and Shuichi immediately thinks of her talent. 

“Ultimate Pianist,” he murmurs, and Akamatsu looks at him quizzically. 

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you want _me_ to come with you?” Shuichi asks. “I don’t really know that much about music; I’m pretty tone-deaf,” he explains. “I’m sure that literally _anyone else_ would be a better choice…”

Akamatsu pauses, looking up as she thinks. “Uhhhh…” Something seems to click, like she’s suddenly found the words she’s looking for. “Maybe, _but—”_ But? “We’ve barely spoken. And you seem interesting. I mean, you’re a detective, for a start.” Before Shuichi can even begin a protest, Akamatsu continues. “But you also seem like a really nice guy in general. So?” She offers a hand to Shuichi.  

Shuichi can’t say no. He takes Akamatsu’s hand, and she immediately pulls him out into the hall. Shuichi takes a moment to lock his door, and then follows her lead to the music room.  

 

They’re both a little bit breathless when they reach the music room. Akamatsu had been gradually speeding up during the walk, and Shuichi marvels at how she can nearly run halfway across the school and still talk his ear off. He finds that he doesn’t really mind, even when he doesn’t understand even a quarter of what she’s talking about. 

Akamatsu opens the door, and Shuichi breathes a sigh of relief when he sees the room empty. Akamatsu seems to notice, and gives him a small smile. 

“Don’t worry, I made sure it’d be empty. It’s easier to practice without people around.”

“But you invited me?” Shuichi asks. Akamatsu flushes.

“Uhhhhhh—” She looks at the ground. “You don’t seem like one for large groups, okay? I didn’t wanna make you uncomfortable…” she says sheepishly, and Shuichi feels a little bad now. 

“O-oh,” he says. “Thank you.” He smiles softly, and hopes Akamatsu can hear it in his voice. 

Awkward silence.

“…you were saying something about, er…” Shuichi wracks his brains, trying to recall what Akamatsu had been talking about before they stopped. He latches onto the first phrase he remembers. “Mozart’s Requiem?” Akamatsu’s eyes light up. 

“Ah, right! Here, sit down, I’ll play some of it for you!” she says excitedly, dragging Shuichi into the room with such force that Shuichi is a little worried about losing his arm. She sets a chair near the piano and motions for Shuichi to sit as she sits at the piano.

“Okay, so Mozart’s _Requiem_ is basically a Church Mass set to music, which was the inspiration for a _lot_ of composers – anyway, it’s a long collection of pieces, 14 movements, originally for choir, and the one I’ll play now is called _Lacrimosa_ ,” she says quickly. She takes a few deep breaths before continuing on, as fast as if she had never stopped. “Another famous composer, Liszt, transcribed the _Requiem_ for solo piano, which is nice for me, because they’re beautiful pieces, but I’m not a church choir.” She laughs at her own comment, and Shuichi does too.

“So. _Lacrimosa._ After this, you’re not allowed to call classical music boring,” Akamatsu says, and starts playing before Shuichi can wonder if he’d _ever_ called classical boring. He can _see_ Akamatsu stop thinking and get lost in the music, and he quickly does the same. 

 

Shuichi stays for longer than he’d intended or expected to. Akamatsu offers to try and teach him some piano, but Shuichi declines, preferring to keep listening to the centuries-old harmonies that his friend knows back to front. He watches her fingers dance across black and white, and he hears a whole spectrum of new colours. 

He’s reluctant to part with her, but then she suggests tomorrow, or the day after, or after, whichever works for him, since she _knows_ he can get pretty caught up with his work. 

Shuichi immediately agrees to tomorrow, and says it’s probably for the best that she stops him from getting too invested. He laughs softly at his own comment, and Akamatsu laughs, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LIVE!
> 
> It took me absolutely ages to write this chapter, and I thank you so much for your patience! I love Kaede and Shuichi's friendship so much, and I absolutely *had* to write this chapter. I kinda used Kaede as my Classical Infodump Gal, but I'm perfectly happy with that and I think she would be, too.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> Small breakdown

A month after Akamatsu first dragged Shuichi out of his room, the two are best friends. They’ve become somewhat involved in each other’s talents, too. Shuichi uses Akamatsu as a sounding board for his theories (and she plays the occasional Watson _wonderfully_ ), and she pulls him away from his work when it seems like he’s getting too obsessed with it. On the other side of things, Shuichi is an excellent practice audience for difficult recital pieces, and also very good at listening to Akamatsu rant about music theory and history until she’s blue in the face. 

Shuichi still doesn’t understand _that_ much; Akamatsu uses a lot of words with odd meanings specific to music, and she talks very quickly when she’s excited (though Shuichi’s not complaining at all; it makes his heart soar to see her so happy and ecstatic about something). However, he now knows that Rachmaninoff “discriminated against small hands” (Akamatsu’s own words), that there’s more than major and minor scales, and that a tritone doesn’t sound great, but is everywhere in the musical West Side Story.

And that’s the movie they’re watching right now. It’s a Saturday night, and they’re in Akamatsu’s dorm, and Akamatsu picked up a _lot_ of snacks—almost _too_ many, in Shuichi’s opinion, but he doesn’t mind so much. Akamatsu searches around on her laptop for the file, then starts the movie. Almost immediately, she begins to talk through the instrumental beginning. 

“Now, I’m not an expert on musical theatre…” Shuichi doesn’t care, as long as she’s happy. 

There’s little conversation through the first part of the movie, aside from Akamatsu occasionally pointing things out in the music to Shuichi. It’s interesting, the way the music itself tells the story, and Shuichi’s definitely starting to appreciate this Leonard Bernstein guy.

Then, Tony and Maria meet at the dance, and it’s cheesy _love at first sight_ , but Shuichi doesn’t mind, and he doesn’t think Akamatsu minds much, either. Then Tony starts singing, and Akamatsu opens her mouth to speak before—

“Another tritone?” Shuichi asks, giving her a small smile. She’s silent for a moment, and then nods, chuckling softly.

“Mmhm!” She looks a little bit proud, Shuichi thinks, though he isn’t sure. She’s definitely pleased in some way, though. 

“ _Maria, say it loud and there’s music playing!_ ” Akamatsu sings quietly to herself, tapping out rhythms and chords with her fingers.  
“ _Say it soft and it’s almost like praying… Maria, I’ll never stop saying Maria!”_

“You sing it better than Tony,” Shuichi says, chuckling softly to himself as the song finishes.

“R-really?” Akamatsu looks taken aback, cheeks going pink.  “Ah—thank you!” she chirps, then murmurs under her breath, _“I always thought this movie could be gayer…”_

“…I agree,” Shuichi says, and Akamatsu looks like she’s just been acquitted of murder. At least, that’s what Shuichi thinks, from her sigh of relief. 

“So…” The movie seems to fade into the background, and Shuichi is suddenly _very_ aware of everything he’s doing, everything Akamatsu’s doing.  
“Are you…?”

“Y-yeah,” Shuichi breathes, not quite meeting Akamatsu’s eyes. (Not like he can on most days, but he’s more aware of it now.)

“M-me too,” Akamatsu replies. “Girls and boys.”

“Me too.”

They look at each other, and both break into bright smiles.

 

* * *

  

“…so I was asked to do some accompaniment for a local cello competition, and I got some rehearsal time with the musicians before the performance. I’d done a couple of rehearsals when this girl around my age came in,” Akamatsu explains, pausing to collect her thoughts. “I took one look at her and my heart just went _oh no._ ”

Shuichi _snorts_ a laugh, and nods. “Me too,” he says. “A few years earlier, actually. My first case, unofficially, was helping one of my classmates find her pet.” He grimaces. “That damn thing was the worst to find. Anyway… She gave me gifts for Valentine’s Day as a thank-you gift. I _think_ …” He pauses. “I think we _technically_ dated for a year or so? I don’t really know _what_ we were. We were ten. Long story short, I caught the attention of the prettiest girl in class, and I already knew I liked boys, so…” He gestures vaguely, a little pink in the face. 

“So you’d already realised you were gay before her?” Akamatsu asks. Shuichi winces a little.

“Not… Exactly?” Shuichi isn’t sure how to explain, or how much to explain, or if he should explain at all. 

He decides to put it as simply as possible, and hope she takes the hint. 

“I grew up a girl,” he says, picking at a hangnail and looking past Akamatsu at her laptop, frozen on Maria and Tony on the fire escape. 

He’s about to ask to play the movie again when Akamatsu speaks. “But you’re a boy now?” she asks. 

Shuichi nods.

“Okay.” she says, nodding, then she thinks for a moment. 

“How about guys?”

“Huh?”

“Any disaster crushes on guys?” she asks, grinning playfully. 

Shuichi groans. “ _Definitely,_ ” he says; any relief he feels is swiftly replaced by a _lot_ of other emotions that he's not quite sure how to handle.

He takes a deep breath. “It’s a long story, so I’ll sum it up. I had a crush on my best friend since… I don’t know _how_ long. But we’d been friends since we were four or five, that’s how long we were friends for,” he explains. “We did basically everything together. Even when he travelled with his family, he’d always tell me how long he’d be gone, where he was going, and I’ve still got a decent collection of all the souvenirs he got me over the years,” he says, chuckling softly to himself.

“And then, one day, he just left without telling me. I still don’t know why,” Shuichi says quietly; Akamatsu grabs his hand, and he looks down and notices he’s drawn blood from the hangnail and barely noticed. He murmurs a thank you, takes a shaky breath, and continues. This is the first time he’s talked about _him_ since… God only knows.

“I was… Ten when he disappeared. After a year, I figured he was dead. And then—” Shuichi feels himself tear up, and he blinks hard, goes back to picking at the hangnail.

Akamatsu takes his hand again. “And then?” she gently coaxes.

“He came back,” Shuichi says, voice shaking and tears spilling over to run down his cheeks. “Earlier this year. I ran into him, and—and he said hi. Used his old nickname for me.” A shaky breath. “Like he’d _never left.”_  

He can’t speak after that, not when he can barely breathe. He curls up, shaking with every breath. Akamatsu stays with him, drapes a blanket around his shoulders, taps his hands when he starts picking at a cuticle, and waits for him to feel okay again.

The first thing Shuichi does when he can speak again is apologise. 

Akamatsu insists that he doesn’t have to. “It’s an awful thing to have happen to you,” she says, a reassuring hand on Shuichi’s shoulder. “You have every right to be upset.”

Shuichi pauses. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

After a few more minutes, Akamatsu gets up and rummages through her desk drawers. “Could’ve sworn it was… _A-hah!”_

She triumphantly holds up a notebook, then gets a pencil and eraser from the same drawer. She sits back down on the bed next to Shuichi, and upon closer inspection Shuichi notices a small detail about the notebook when she opens it.

“Sheet music?” he asks, curious. Akamatsu nods, flipping through the pages. They’re scribbled on and slightly torn, at least near the front of the book. She very quickly finds a blank page, and Shuichi is fairly sure that the rest are blank as well, considering the immaculate state of the pages after this one. “What are you doing?”  


“Well… Sometimes, when it’s hard to express complicated feelings, it’s easier to just write music for it,” Akamatsu explains, scribbling down a title as she speaks. “And _sometimes_ , you express your complicated emotions for certain people by dedicating a piece of music to them,” she adds.

Akamatsu holds up a blank piece of music titled _**Ode To An Asshole: A Song For The Boy Who Hurt My Best Friend (To Be Played At His Funeral).**_ “And to whom do I owe the dishonour of the dedication?” she asks, pencil at the ready. 

Shuichi isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “Um… Amami Rantaro.” 

_Amami Rantaro, one of the more popular people in our class, that you’re extremely good friends with, and who probably doesn’t have it in him to hurt someone deliberately even if he_ **_wanted_ ** _to. That Amami Rantaro._

Shuichi tries very hard not to laugh at Akamatsu’s surprised expression. He snickers quietly when she tears out the page, crushes it into a ball, and tosses it behind her without a second glance. He snorts when she misses the bin by a few feet.

Several minutes go by where neither of them say anything.

Akamatsu speaks first.

“That’s one hell of a disaster crush.”

“Yeah.”

“You still in love with him?”

“I think so.”

“You poor boy.” 

A few more long moments pass. Shuichi speaks this time.

“Should we finish the movie?” 

“Yeah."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> 1) Rachmaninoff — More of me using Kaede as my vessel for music infodumping. Rachmaninoff was a pianist and composer who had fucking MASSIVE hands, and a lot of his music is only playable by those who also have fucking MASSIVE hands  
> 2) West Side Story — Okay so I got a new special interest and that is West Side Story and that's why these two are watching it so there's that
> 
> okay so I wrote this whole chapter on impulse in a DAY which I'm very proud of but also why don't I have that motivation regularly? I'm not super proud of this chapter to be honest, but it's nearly 1am and I don't want to edit it anymore so I hope you enjoy Kaede and Shuichi being Good Friends™!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:
> 
> Shuichi experiences sensory overload, but it's not described in detail. He also experiences physical symptoms of anxiety without the mental symptoms.

It’s not until Christmas that Shuichi manages to talk to Rantaro, at a small party that Tojo’s decided to arrange for the students staying at the Academy over the break. It’s enough people that Shuichi feels stifled and suffocated, but not so many that he can disappear without being noticed. Or do much of _anything_ without being noticed; there’s not enough of a background for Shuichi to fade into.

He finds himself almost resentful that Akamatsu isn’t there—he knows, of course, that she has every right to spend the holidays with her family. But he still feels a little bit lost without the company of someone who actually knows what she’s doing when it comes to people. 

Half an hour in, and he’s already tempted to make up an excuse so he can leave already. He glances at his phone—it’s late enough that he can say he’s tired (which isn’t technically a lie, he supposes). But he also re-reads a text exchange between himself and Akamatsu, which makes him rethink his plan.

 

**Saihara:** I can’t do this.

**#1 chopin fan:** Yes you can!!!

**#1 chopin fan:** You’ll be fine, I know it.

**Saihara:** If you say so…

**#1 chopin fan:** Promise me something

**Saihara:**?

**#1 chopin fan:** That you’ll at least TRY to talk to someone!

**#1 chopin fan:** Doesn’t have to be anything big. Tojo-san’s gonna be there, she’s relatively nonthreatening. 

**#1 chopin fan:** I know it’s scary. But I know you can do it.

**Saihara:** Thank you. I’ll try my best.

**Saihara:** Promise.

 

Shuichi makes a quick plan as he puts his phone back in his pocket: go by Tojo on his way out, exchange pleasantries with her, then leave before the noise and all the people get too much. It certainly _seems_ foolproof.

“You done brooding, or what?” 

_Great,_ Shuichi thinks, looking down at the Ultimate Supreme Leader. _Kokichi Ouma, of all people._ “I was just leaving.” He’s not entirely sure where Ouma came from

“Ugh, _bo-ring!_ ” Ouma complains. “You’ve spent the whole party”—he thinks for a moment, then amends the statement—“nay, the whole _semester_ hiding in a corner, tail between your legs, and you’re just gonna _leave_? I didn’t even realise you could talk ’til right now, y’know?” He giggles, high-pitched and sly. “Or maybe I already knew. Akamatsu-chan seems like she knows you pretty well. Hard to know anything about you if you’re _completely_ mute!”

Shuichi grits his teeth, glancing around the room for some kind of escape. But everybody’s engrossed in their own conversations, and it feels _wrong_ to just leave mid-conversation. Or mid-interrogation, more accurately. 

He tries to go about it politely. “I’m tired, alright? I don’t really have the energy for—for _this_ ,” he says, gesturing vaguely to indicate the situation: _Lots of people. Lots of noise. You bothering me out of nowhere._

“Then why’d you even come?” 

Shuichi feels his face heat up— _I_ ** _shouldn’t_** _have showed up, why did I think I could manage this? Sorry, Akamatsu-san_ —as Ouma looks up at him with big, innocent eyes, and a smile that doesn’t reach them.

“ _Goodnight_ , Ouma-kun,” Shuichi says through gritted teeth, leaving Ouma behind in favour of the nearest exit.

Shuichi closes the door behind him, and leans against the wall to recover. It’s _much_ quieter outside, with only a couple of other people in the hallway. They don’t seem to have noticed Shuichi. They stay focused on their own conversation; Shuichi can hear them without too much trouble, but he doesn’t have the mental energy to translate sounds to words to meaning and then again into _implied_ meaning. Which is fine; he’s here to recover until he can go to his dorm, not to eavesdrop.

Still, the conversation becomes grounding—something consistent to focus on—and also becomes an unintentional measure of his mental state. That is, Shuichi knows that he’s no longer overloaded when he starts hearing words instead of just syllables that he’s too tired to process. Or, he realises he’s okay when he figures out that one half of the conversation has been trying to get his attention for the last three minutes.

“Are you sure that you’re okay?” is the first sentence he understands. Shuichi flinches, finally taking his eyes off a scuff mark on the floor and instead looking briefly at the person speaking to him.

The light blue, somewhat anxious eyes of Kiibo Idabashi look back at him, though only for a brief second before they, too, are drawn to the floor. Idabashi always seems a little bit nervous and jittery, and now is no exception. “My apologies if I was bothering you!” they add, taking a few steps away from Shuichi. “I only intended to see if you were feeling alright, but I feel I _may_ have overstepped.” They laugh, awkward and unconfident, in a way that screams, _‘I’m trying to diffuse the tension and I don’t know if it’s working’._

Shuichi looks back at the floor before looking at Idabashi becomes too uncomfortable for either of them. “I’m… Okay, I think,” he says, taking his phone out of his pocket to check the time and _oh my god I’ve been out here staring into space for twenty minutes._ “I was just a little overwhelmed. Tired,” he admits, fidgeting with the cuffs of his sleeves. 

“I understand completely,” Idabashi says. “People can be… _extraordinarily_ tiring.” They laugh again, still somewhat self-consciously. “Did Ouma-kun, er…”

“Antagonise me?”

Idabashi smiles, somewhat sheepishly. “That’s… One way of putting it.”

“In that case, yes,” Shuichi says. “I was planning on heading back to my dorm, but—”

Shuichi looks back at Idabashi just in time to see their eyes go wide. “Oh my gosh, I’ve been keeping you, haven’t I?” They’re pressing the tips of their index fingers together, and their face is already scarlet. “I’m so sorry, Saihara-kun!”

Shuichi’s first instinct is to apologise, but he manages to bite it back. “Really, it’s—”

“It’s alright, Idabashi-kun.” Rantaro walks over to Idabashi and places a comforting hand on their shoulder.

_He must’ve been here the whole time,_ Shuichi thinks, _and I somehow didn’t notice him._ He tries to think logically about it—he was overwhelmed and not paying much attention, and Rantaro isn’t one to draw unnecessary attention to himself—but he still feels a little stupid for not noticing. _Some detective I am._

Rantaro smiles at Idabashi, and oh, Shuichi _knows_ that smile. It’s saying _I’ll take care of you, idiot_ in the most endearing way possible, and it looks the same now as it did five, six, seven years ago when he tore Shuichi away from assignments, convinced him to have snacks when he couldn’t be pried away from his work, turned on a movie when he could sense that Shuichi was overworking himself… Everything has changed, but Rantaro is the same, and Shuichi isn’t sure how he feels about it. He’s certainly _feeling,_ though.

“Besides,” Rantaro continues, “I think Saihara-kun has the right idea. It’s getting a little late.” It sounds odd, hearing Rantaro call him by his surname. Then again, hearing _Shuichi_ would also sound weird.

_Does he even know my name? The one I chose?_ Shuichi can’t help but wonder. _It’s likely that he does… Does he see me as Saihara or Shuichi? Does he know I still think of him as Rantaro, rather than Amami?_ He bristles as one more thought crosses his mind.

_Does he care?_

When Rantaro speaks, Idabashi looks like they’ve just remembered something important, and gives a decisive nod. “Right. Yes. Goodnight, Saihara-kun!” they say, smiling brightly and giving Shuichi a small wave. Shuichi can’t help but smile back.

“Goodnight, Idabashi-kun. Have a good Christmas,” he says. He hesitates for what is probably _slightly_ longer than is acceptably, then looks up at Rantaro. “A-and you too, Amami-kun.”

Rantaro seems almost surprised—though Shuichi isn’t _entirely_ sure. Rantaro has always been a challenge to read, and Shuichi’s out of practice—then smiles warmly. “Have a good Christmas, Saihara-kun.” There’s a few seconds of silence, where he seems to give Shuichi a once over, before he speaks again. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

Shuichi feels like he’s been punched in the stomach, and not entirely in a bad way. _He still cares._ “I-I’ll try,” he says, before he starts walking to his dorm, perhaps a little quicker than his natural pace.

Shuichi feels a little bit sick. His stomach is churning, his palms are sweaty, and his heartbeat is thrumming in his ears. He feels like he’s dying, like he’ll collapse at any moment now and never get up.

He’s ecstatic. Pride blossoms in his chest like a garden of achievement—and it’s almost like a garden, he thinks, given how long he’s spent struggling, trying to beat his own psyche into submission, into something workable, with nothing but pain and fear in return—but tonight he’s _blooming._ He’s terrified and overwhelmed and _giddy_ with joy as he shuts the door to his dorm, leaning against it and slowly sliding to the ground. He hugs his knees, takes a few minutes to slow his breathing to a normal pace.

“…I can’t believe I did that,” he says to himself, and he’s thanking god for the social obligations that _made_ him do that. “We _talked._ ”

Shuichi stands carefully, double checks that his door is locked (it is), then starts getting ready for bed. He idly flaps his hands as he goes through his routine, in an attempt to deal with the lingering nervous energy. 

Just as he’s about to switch the light off, his phone buzzes. Shuichi looks over at his nightstand quizzically, then flicks the switch. The light of the screen makes it easy to walk over to his bed without tripping over anything (well, aside from his own feet). He lies down, pulls the blankets over himself, and picks up his phone. He winces at the bright light in his eyes, as predictable as it is, but when he sees the source of the notification, he grins.

 

**#1 chopin fan:** So how’d it go?

**#1 chopin fan:** Did you talk to Tojo-san?

 

Shuichi thinks for a moment, then types out his response.

 

**Saihara:** I’ll do you two better.

**Saihara:** Possibly two better and one worse.

**#1 chopin fan:**?

**Saihara:** Bad news first. Ouma-kun.

**#1 chopin fan:** Ow

**Saihara:** Good news. Idabashi-kun and Amami-kun.

 

There’s a long pause while Akamatsu types. 

 

**#1 chopin fan:** Holy CRAP

**Saihara:** I know.

**#1 chopin fan:** Are you okay???

**Saihara:** I feel like I’m dying. But in a good way, I think.

**#1 chopin fan:** I’m so proud of you!!!!!!!!

**Saihara:** Thank you.

**#1 chopin fan:** Wait a second it’s nearly one in the morning

**#1 chopin fan:** Go to BED

**#1 chopin fan:** TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

**Saihara:** Funny, that’s exactly what Amami-kun said.

**#1 chopin fan:** Aw that’s cute

**#1 chopin fan:** Go the fuck to sleep

**Saihara:** Okay, okay. Goodnight, Akamatsu-san.

**#1 chopin fan:** Goodnight, Saihara-kun!

 

Akamatsu then sends him an audio file; a recording of whatever piece she’s decided to play tonight. She’s taken to sending them to Shuichi each night as a sort of Christmas gift over the holidays, and also as an attempt to help him sleep. It doesn’t always help—he’s often too caught up listening to the music to let it become background noise—but he appreciates the gesture.

Tonight, it’s Chopin’s _Nocturne_ in Eb Major. Shuichi’s never heard it before, but it sounds familiar and comforting regardless. Everything is okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOT THIS DONE IN TIME FOR SHUICHI'S BIRTHDAY! Happy birthday, nerd, your gift is being able to talk to your best friend/crush/whatever the fuck Rantaro is to you at this point.  
> I've got another (long-ass) chapter in the works right now, so that should be done pretty soon!  
> Anyway, questions to answer:  
> 1\. Where the fuck was I?  
> Uhh, year 11, mostly. Our state's just changed the system for senior school, and my cohort's the guinea pig cohort. So all our previous preparation for the system meant NOTHING and year 11's enough of a nightmare without that lmao. And also, around the last time I posted, I was busy wrapping things up for a show I'd written and performed, and that. Took a lot out of me. But I'm happy to be back!  
> 2\. Why is Kokichi such a bastard?  
> Yeahhhhhh, I'm not the nicest to Kokichi in this one. He's gonna stay a bitch, at least for a little while, because the way I write Shuichi and the way I've envisioned Kokichi (in this story, at least) aren't the most compatible people? Rest assured, at some point I will write something where I'm nice to Kokichi, but. Not this story.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:
> 
> None applicable

For the next few days, Shuichi doesn’t manage another conversation with Rantaro, which he’s fine with. While he does _really_ want the closure that comes with a proper conversation, he’s also trying not to burn himself out completely. 

So he keeps himself busy; a few hours a day spent working, then as much time with available classmates as he can stand (which really depends on the person; he spends hours with Tojo without getting too tired, but only half an hour with Ouma before he’s looking for an excuse to leave). After that, he holes himself up in the library and reads, reads for as long as he can keep his eyes open. Then back to his dorm to sleep.

It’s not a very _exact_ routine, but it’s simple, and it keeps Shuichi busy.

On New Year’s Eve, he breaks it, skipping work entirely to assist Tojo in setting up another party, along with two other students from different classes. Tojo splits off with Ultimate Moral Compass Kiyotaka Ishimaru to clean up the room they’ve decided to use, a decision for which Shuichi is secretly grateful—as friendly and well-intentioned as Ishimaru is, his voice is _very_ loud, and Shuichi’s sure it would quickly become overwhelming—which leaves him to get decorations with self-described “Ultimate Nothing” Hajime Hinata.

(“Wait, what?” Shuichi asks. Hinata fixes his ponytail and shrugs.

“My alter’s the talented one, not me,” he explains. “Ultimate Analyst. They don’t front very often, but the academy can’t take one without the other.”

“…I see.”)

 

Despite there being only four of them, they do a fairly good job of fixing up the classroom to a party standard before people start arriving. Hinata puts together a playlist that features plenty of work by musically talented students (although based off her music, Shuichi is a little bit afraid of what sort of person Ibuki Mioda might be) and also complies with Ishimaru’s standards of what is and isn’t suitable for a school function. 

(Ishimaru leaves at 9:15 on the dot, at which point most of the other students have shown up; Hinata immediately switches the playlist to one that almost exclusively includes songs that definitely do _not_ have Ishimaru’s approval.)

Shuichi stays in a corner for a few minutes, wallflowering and trying to plan out his evening, how to ration his energy. _Let’s not have a complete shutdown in the hallway tonight._

 

Shuichi’s plan falls apart at ten thirty or thereabouts, and it’s mostly because he’s underestimated how draining conversations with Ouma can be. Shuichi excuses himself once again (“Aw, didn’t even last til midnight, Mister Detective?”) and starts to head back to his dorm.

Moonlight cuts into the hallway through the windows, neat rectangles of light on the floor. Shuichi slows to a stop, staring out into the sky. Stars stare back down at him, and the moon is smiling. Shuichi can’t help but smile back, and when he starts walking again, he has a new destination in mind.

 

The stars look a little brighter when Shuichi steps outside, a little clearer without panes of glass obstructing them. Shuichi watches the sky while he walks, allowing himself to be distracted and transfixed. As soon as he hears the sound of running water, he brings his eyes and his mind back down to earth and brings his attention to the fountain.

And of course, Rantaro Amami is sitting in the middle of the bench in front of it. And of _course_ he manages to lock eyes with Shuichi, and it seems almost entirely by accident.

_Fuck it_ , Shuichi thinks. 

He walks over and sits on the edge of the bench, looking up at the night sky and trying to pick out constellations—albeit mostly from vague recollections of Momota’s rants, so it’s hard to know if he’s correct or if the stars are just stars, but it gives him something to do, and something to focus on. 

“I’m sorry.”

Shuichi blinks hard, jolted out of his trance. He looks at Rantaro—who’s moved to the side so Shuichi has more space—and wonders if he heard correctly. “…say that again?”

“I’m sorry,” Rantaro repeats.

“For what?”

Rantaro thinks it over for a moment, then sighs softly. “Hmm… Lots of stuff,” he begins, every bit as casual as usual. “Disappearing without telling you, not trying to get in touch with you, what happened at orientation…” He goes quiet and looks down at his hands, fiddling with his rings. “Basically everything that happened between us in the last five years.”

“It’s—” 

“It’s not _fine_ , Saihara-kun,” Rantaro insists. “You’re my best friend, and I abandoned you.” Shuichi takes note of the present tense, and something in his chest twinges. “I know I hurt you. I missed _five years_ with you—that’s not something you can just shrug off. I…” Rantaro trails off, like he’s not sure what to say.

_I’ve never seen him so lost for words,_ Shuichi thinks. So he tries to fill in the gap.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Shuichi asks. “You don’t have to, but… I’d like to know. I figured that… That you’d _died_ , but…” He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. Rantaro finishes it for him.

“Obviously, that didn’t happen,” Rantaro says, chuckling softly. “It’s… It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

So Rantaro tells him about the sailing trip, about the storm, and about being shipwrecked on an island in the middle of nowhere. About rebuilding the boat with anything and everything that worked, and about keeping watch on the ocean to tell if he’s close to land. Rantaro talks about finally getting home, after months of finding his way back, and expecting to find his family where they belonged. He’d been prepared to tell them the story in _excruciating_ detail, Rantaro says, and was planning to tell Shuichi, too. 

He then tells Shuichi about the ransom note in the foyer, about a home empty of the people who belonged there. And when Rantaro talks about travelling the world, finding family one by one, and never taking his eyes off his mission for one minute, Shuichi understands why he heard nothing in five years. 

“And I wanted to find you, too. Find my family, then find you. But I’m still not finished searching,” he says; he’s started looking at the sky while he speaks, and Shuichi’s gaze is there, too. “And I figured you’d take it badly, suddenly showing up after all those years. So I just… Avoided it. Kept searching,” he says. “And got scouted to go here, ran into you.”

Shuichi smiles a little. “ _I_ ran into _you_ , Amami-kun.”

“Same difference,” Rantaro says, chuckling softly. “But I’m curious. How’d you end up here?” he asks, and he looks back at Shuichi. “I’d… Like to know what I missed.”

Shuichi sighs. “It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

So Shuichi talks about the first few months, about realising that he’d probably never see his friend again. He talks about losing himself in work and research, about willing himself to ignore and forget everything outside of his investigations, which all seem to blend together, now, as he recounts them. He talks about the Karamorita case, about his uncle teaching him to collect fingerprints, analyse bloodstains, collect evidence without contaminating it. 

(“Pretty messed up curriculum,” Rantaro says. Shuichi can’t help but laugh a little, and agree.)

Shuichi talks about staying up until sunrise, about being unable to leave the case alone. About pinning photographs and post-its to maps, and writing theory after theory after theory of what might have happened. He talks about going through the list of suspects and landing on the name _Shimada_ , and about suddenly seeing it everywhere. About waking his uncle up at 3:27am exactly, his arms full of pieces of paper and photographs and scrawled notes that tied everything together.

Shuichi talks about the newspaper headlines, about being called “The Boy Detective”, and about deciding that the title fit him far better than he’d thought it would. He talks, just for a moment, about picking a name, and having to practice speaking.

And when Shuichi talks about the trial, about finding the truth too late, his hand moves to his cap and pulls the peak down over his eyes.

“I couldn’t leave the house for a month,” he admits. “It… Still hurts to look people in the eye. All I can ever see is _him_.” Shuichi smiles bitterly, his jaw tensing and his leg beginning to shake. “A couple months after the trial, I got the acceptance letter. _Congratulating_ me for it.” He sighs defeatedly and lazily leans back against the bench, eyes once again fixed on the stars. “I’m attending the best school in the country—in the _world_ —for sending an abuse victim to prison. I… _I shouldn’t be here_ ,” he says, blinking hard to stop himself from crying. 

“You didn’t know,” Rantaro says, and suddenly he’s _right next to him_ and has his hand on Shuichi’s shoulder and it makes his touch starvation _burn._ “It’s not your fault. You actually deserve to be here.”

_‘Actually’?_

“And you don’t?” Shuichi asks, frowning. “After all you went through? If you don’t deserve your title, nobody does—”

“But I didn’t ask for it,” Rantaro snaps, though he instantly looks like he regrets it. “I... I don’t _care_ if I’m guaranteed success, I don’t _care_ if I’m set for life. I’d give it all up in a heartbeat to get my family back.” His expression is as indecipherable as ever, but Shuichi could swear he sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. 

Shuichi’s chest aches—probably a combination of wearing his binder too long and _hurting_ for his friend—and he finds himself placing a hand on Rantaro’s back. He hopes he comes across as reassuring instead of weirdly touchy-feely; Rantaro doesn’t _look_ uncomfortable. 

“I suppose we’d both rather not be here,” Rantaro says. Shuichi nods. 

“Guess so... But it’s not like we can change things now,” he says; he finds himself feeling a little optimistic about that, somehow. Rantaro nods, then looks down at Shuichi. Shuichi looks back, and they hold eye contact for what _should_ be an uncomfortably long time, but somehow isn’t. It’s only after that comfortably long moment that Shuichi notices that Rantaro’s been mouthing something, mumbling under his breath. He spends a second piecing it together. 

“Shu... Shuichi?” He phrases it like a question— _Why are you saying my name? My_ ** _first_** _name?_

Rantaro’s cheeks go slightly pink. “Ah, yeah... That _is_ your name, right?” he asks, the closest to sheepish he’s ever looked. “I just… I don’t want to keep thinking of the wrong name, but I also don’t want to draw a blank every time,” he says, and he scratches the back of his neck in a way that Shuichi immediately translates as embarrassment. He’s glad when Rantaro looks away, because it’s at that moment that Shuichi’s face goes red.

“I see… Yeah, it’s… It’s Shuichi now,” he says, pulling his cap down over his eyes.

When he looks back at Rantaro a few moments later, he’s smiling warmly. “It’s nice. Suits you. _Saihara Shuichi-kun_.”

Shuichi can’t help but smile back. After an unsure moment, he takes his phone out of his pocket to check the time, right as the display ticks over to _00:53, 01/01._

_I still lose track of time…_

“Happy New Year, Amami-kun,” he says absentmindedly; the celebration of another year feels eclipsed by all the various _other_ emotions clouding his head. He’s happy to reconnect, but the aches of old loss still tug at him, the same as the day Rantaro vanished and the years after.

“Happy New Year, Saihara-kun,” Rantaro replies. “A new year, a new beginning, a new collection of choices and chances,” he muses, before laughing to himself. “Sorry, got a little cliché there.”

Shuichi can’t help but smile. “You did,” he agrees, “but I don’t think you’re incorrect.”

“You’re too kind.” Rantaro sighs, leaning back against the bench. “You look tired. Should probably get some sleep.”

“What, and you don’t need to?” Shuichi scoffs, and something in him knows exactly how this conversation will play out.

“I don’t make a habit of these hours.”

“And who told you that?” The irrational part of him is afraid that it was Akamatsu. The rational part of him wonders why the irrational part is afraid. _She cares about you, idiot._

“Your eye bags, that’s who.” And that teasing comment (and the chuckle accompanying it) is what settles it; they’ve fallen back into their old rhythm as if nothing had ever interrupted them.

Shuichi gives an almost-resigned sigh, his smile betraying him. “I guess I’ll take your advice, if it’s that obvious.” 

Rantaro nods, and smiles in that cheeky, faux-innocent way that makes Shuichi’s heart melt. “It is.”

Shuichi stands, as if to leave, but lingers for a few minutes more. He revels in the cool night air, the comfortable almost-silence of the wind and quiet breathing, and the stars shining down on him. 

He hears movement to his left, and Rantaro is standing next to him. “C’mon, insomniac,” he says, and offers his hand; Shuichi takes it without question, though he does flinch a bit at the cold metal against his palm. _That’s… A lot of rings…_

They arrive at the dorms in what feels like an instant, and Shuichi’s a little disappointed at how quickly time has passed. But then Rantaro says, “See you tomorrow,” and Shuichi can only smile.

“Later today?” he half-corrects, half-offers.

“Later today,” Rantaro half-agrees, half-promises, heading to his own room.

And even if _later today_ is only a casual conversation over breakfast, then it’ll be enough for him, Shuichi thinks.

“ _A new collection of choices and chances_ ,” he muses, echoing Rantaro’s words back to himself. As cheesy as it sounds—had sounded the first time—Shuichi likes it. That night, he falls asleep to _new chances_ and Debussy’s _Rêverie._

He’s found that falling asleep is far easier now than it used to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ladies, gentlemen, those who know better, it is BAGGAGE time!!! it's like a fuckin airport up in here!  
> but yeah, FINALLY rantaro's backstory! i changed it,,, quite a lot from canon, but w/ever. i'll explain if anyone's curious, but i won't make this note too long.  
> i wanted to upload this on rantaro's birthday (bc i need meaningful deadlines lmao) but it just kept getting longer and didn't end where i thought it would and it got away from me for another few days.  
> in other news, here's a meme i made about chapter 10: https://imgur.com/a/yZ8mbwD


End file.
